Openly gay television actor and comedian, who died of complications from AIDS. After his death, his colleague Greg Malone campaigned for HIV and AIDS education in Sexton's memory. His sister, filmmaker Mary Sexton, produced a documentary film about him, Tommy...A Family Portrait, in 2001.Along with Malone and their co-star Andy Jones, Sexton was a posthumous recipient of the Earle Grey Award, the lifetime achievement award of Canadian television's Gemini Awards, in 2002.

The Tommy Sexton Centre, a new assisted housing complex for people living with HIV and AIDS, was opened in St. John's in 2006.

Sodomy in history, May 11

1926 — The Wisconsin Supreme Court rules that police may enter a home without a warrant to arrest people for sodomy if they see them enter the home. The Court says: "To uphold defendant’s contention would seriously embarrass the enforcement of law, and license the defendant and her kind to continue their abominable practices under the protection of the law."

1983 — The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rules that placing part of your body into an adjoining booth obviates privacy rights.

1988 — The Oregon Court of Appeals decides that a consensual act of fellatio occurring in a parked car in a driveway off a downtown street is occurring in a private place.

1990 — An Oklahoma appellate court rules that the sodomy law is not violated by placing a finger in the rectum.2001 – 52 people arrested on “The Queen Boat” moored in the Nile, Egypt. 50 charged with “habitual debauchery” & “obscene behaviour” and 2 charged with“contempt of religion.”

Wednesday, 15 May 2013

Events this day in Queer History

2008 – California State Supreme Court strikes down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, making them available from June 20082009 – Same-sex couples in Finland allowed to legally adopt a biological child [no full adoption]

Born this day

Archduke Ludwig Viktor(1842 – 1919) Austrian

Aristocrat, the youngest brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. Despite his mother's attempts to arrange a marriage for him with Duchess Sophie Charlotte in Bavaria, youngest sister of Empress Elisabeth he remained a bachelor all his life. As a result of his very public homosexuality and transvestitism, and prolonged visits to the Central Bathhouse in Vienna, his brother Emperor Franz Joseph finally forbade him to stay in the capital.

Jasper Johns (1930 – ) US
Contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.

Gay rights activist who served as the first paid executive director of the Gay Men's Health Crisis and later served in leadership positions with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Bailey House and the Gill Foundation.

Sodomy in history, May 15

1797 — Captain Henry Allen is hanged in England for sodomy, the only ship’s captain ever to be hanged for sodomy.1968 — The North Carolina Supreme Court rules that sodomy indictments must name the partner of the defendant.1978 — The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear a challenge to the North Carolina sodomy law.

Tuesday, 14 May 2013

Born this day

Magnus Hirschfeld(1868 –
1935) German
Physician and sexologist, who was an outspoken advocate for sexual minorities. Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which Dustin Goltz called "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights."

William Alexander Percy(1885 - 1942 ) US
Lawyer / Poet

Lou Harrison(1917 - 2003 ) US

Composer, particularly noted for incorporating elements of the music of non-Western cultures into his work, and one of the most prominent composers to have worked with microtones. Harrison lived for many years with Bill Colvig in Aptos, California.

Richard Deacon(1921 – 1984) US
Actor / Presenter

Rolf Gindorf(1939 – ) German
Sexologist / Author

Martin Webster (1943 – ) UK
Politician

Ulrike Folkerts(1961 – ) German
Actress

Charlie Vazquez
(1971 – ) US
Artist / Author / Musician / Publisher

Clare Teal
(1973 – ) UK
Singer

Died this day

Magnus Hirschfeld(1868 – 1935) German
Physician and sexologist

Ray Stricklyn (1928 - 2002) US
Actor / Publicist

Pepper LaBeija (1948 - 2003) US
Entertainer – Born 5th November

Sodomy in history, May 14

1718 — New Hampshire amends its sodomy law, adopting the 1697 Massachusetts law verbatim.1915 — Pennsylvania excludes sodomy from the list of crimes for which the defendant is entitled to a preliminary hearing.1918 — A Delaware appellate court rules that solicitation to commit sodomy does not constitute an attempt to commit it.1928 — The Nazi Party in Germany responds to a Gay rights questionnaire with a statement of opposition to legalizing same-sex sexual relations.1931 — North Carolina is the third state to permit a divorce if one spouse is convicted of the "crime against nature.

Events this day in Queer History

Born this day

British author and playwright. Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca (which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1941) and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

After her death in 1989, numerous references were made to her secret bisexuality; an affair with Gertrude Lawrence, as well as her attraction for Ellen Doubleday, the wife of her American publisher, were cited.[16] Du Maurier stated in her memoirs that her father had wanted a son; and, being a tomboy, she had naturally wished to have been born a boy.

Killer Karl Krupp
(1934 – 1995 ) Dutch / US
Wrestler

Bruce Chatwin(1940 - 1989 ) UK
Journalist / Author

Armistead Maupin(1944 – ) US
Author, best known for the popular "Tales of the City" series, set in San Francisco

Died this day

Sir William Dobell (1899 - 1970 ) Australian
Sculptor / Painter

Rebecca Wight(1959 - 1988) US
Hate Crime Victim

Myron Brinig(1896 – 1991) US

Jewish-American author who wrote twenty-one novels from 1929 to 1958. Brinig's novels often dealt with homosexuality. According to the Gay & Lesbian Literary Heritage, Brinig was the "first American Jewish novelist to write in any significant way about the gay experience."

Paul Bartel (1938 - 2000 ) US
Actor / Director / Screenwriter

Larry McKeon(1944 - 2008) US
Politician

Sodomy in history, May 13

1660 — In New Netherland Colony, J.Q. van der Linde, a married man, is tied into a sack and drowned for sodomy with an adolescent male. Three years later his widow files for bankruptcy.

1892 — The Michigan Supreme Court rules that sodomy convictions can be based on unverified information.

1909 — Connecticut reduces the penalty for sodomy from a compulsory life sentence to a maximum of 30 years in prison.

1965 — The Washington Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction over the defendant’s contention that the prosecutor’s closing remarks to the jury constituted misconduct. The defendant didn’t provide text of the remarks, so the Court couldn’t rule on them.

Sunday, 12 May 2013

Events this day in Queer History

2009 – New York marriage bill passed the Assembly, but later defeated in the Senate before final passage in 2011.

Born this day

Bruce Voeller(1934 - 1994 ) US Biologist

Gerry Studds (1937 – 2006) US
Politician

Joan Nestle (1940 – ) US
Author / Editor / Activist

Pam St Clement(1942 – ) UK
Actress

Linda Ketner(1950 – ) US
Business Consultant and politician, who was a Congressional candidate for the Democratic Party in South Carolina, 2008

Deborah Warner(1959 – ) UK
Director

Jared Polis (1975 – ) US
IT entrepreneur and Democrat Colorado politician, who was elected to Congress in 2008.

Charlie Herschel (1979 – )US
Reality TV [Survivor]

Died this day

Amy Lowell (1874 - 1925) US
Poet

Robert Reed(1932 - 1992) USActor, best known for "The Brady Bunch". Married and publicly closeted, he was nevertheless well-known as gay to colleagues on the series. He was HIV positive at the time of his death in 1992

Simon Raven (1927 – 2001) UK

Novelist, essayist, dramatist and raconteur who, in a writing career of forty years, caused controversy, amusement and offence. Among the many things said about him, perhaps the most quoted was that he had "the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel". E W Swanton called Raven's cricket memoir Shadows in the Grass "the filthiest cricket book ever written"

Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor and the "Combines" are a combination of both. Rauschenberg's approach was sometimes called 'Neo-Dada', a label he shared with the painter Jasper Johns , with whom he had a long artistic and personal relationship.

Sodomy in history, May 12

1921 — California changes the penalty for sodomy to 1-10 years.

1961 — A Georgia appellate court rules that the age of a sodomy partner is irrelevant and that the defendant’s homosexuality is irrelevant.

1975 — California repeals its consenting adult laws, including the laws against sodomy and oral copulation.

1976 — A federal court in Virginia suggests that the state’s sodomy law does not apply to married couples, assuming that no third party is present, even though there is no statutory exemption for them.

1977 — A Georgia appellate court upholds a conviction for solicitation for sodomy for offering an undercover police officer a blowjob.

Sodomy in history, May 10

1962 — The California Supreme Court overturns the sodomy conviction of a man caught by police in a public restroom by use of a peephole drilled into the roof.

1984 — A Louisiana appellate court upholds a sentence of 4 years at hard labor for a man who solicited an undercover police officer and for having previous convictions for the same thing.2007 – Police in Esfahan, Iran raid a birthday party and arrest 87 people including 80 suspected gay men. All but 17 released. These 17 were believed to have been wearing women’s clothing.

Sodomy in history, May 9

1908 — Ohio prohibits probation for anyone convicted of sodomy.

1916 — The Idaho Supreme Court rules that fellatio is a "crime against nature."

1969 — West Germany repeals its sodomy law.

1974 — The District of Columbia Court of Appeals strikes down a law prohibiting commission of a "lewd, obscene and indecent act" in a case brought by Gay men who were arrested and had their employers notified by police.

Sodomy in history, May 8

1763 — Police storm a lavatory in Amsterdam and arrest two men who were kissing. Two women had turned them in. One gets death and one gets 20 years.

1805 — King George III of England pardons sailor Bartlett Ambler of a sodomy conviction due to the questionable veracity of his alleged partners.

1917 — The North Dakota Supreme Court sustains a conviction for cunnilingus under its sodomy law. This is the first conviction for cunnilingus to be sustained on appeal in the United States.

1953 — A federal appellate court is the first to sustain a sodomy conviction under the federal Assimilative Crimes Act of 1909 for a male-female sexual assault committed on a naval vessel on Lake Michigan in the territorial waters of Indiana.

1975 — A Florida court sex dismisses charges against Gay men in the Club Miami.

1998 — The South African Supreme Court strikes down that country’s law against sex between men.

Tuesday, 7 May 2013

Born this day

Professional American football player, a running back in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins for two seasons, from 1967-68. In 1968, he was arrested by Washington, D.C. police for having sex with a man in public. Injuries also played a part in cutting short his career and by 1969 he was out of pro football. He died of complications due to AIDS in 1993.

John Fleck(1951 – ) US

Actor / Performance Artist

Nicholas Hytner(1956 – ) UK

Producer / Director

Mike Jones
(1957 – ) US Personal Trainer / Escort / Author

Craig Hinton (1964 - 2006), UK.

Author / Playwright

Johan Kenkhuis(1980 – ) Dutch Swimmer

Died this day

Giovanni di Giovanni(1350 - 1365) Italian

One of the younger victims of the campaign against sodomy, waged in Florence since the Middle Ages.
He was convicted by the Podestà court of being the passive partner of a number of different men. He was labeled "a public and notorious passive sodomite." His punishment was to be paraded on the back of an ass, then to be publicly castrated. Finally, he was to have his anus burned with a red-hot iron (or, as the sentence read: "[punished] in that part of the body where he allowed himself to be known in sodomitical practice.") It is presumed he did not survive the ordeal

Stewart McKinney (1931 – 1987) US

Politician

Kevyn Aucoin(1962 – 2002) US
Make-up artist and photographer. As a child, he used to frequently did his sisters' makeup and photographed the results. After dropping out of high school as a result of continuous bullying, he enrolled in beauty school, hoping to learn more about applying make-up - but ended up teaching the class instead.
He later moved to New York, where he was did several photo shoots and covers for Vogue and Cosmopolitan, and then worked for Revlon and the Japanese cosmetics giant Shiseido.

Robin Blaser (1925 –2009) US / Canadian
Author / Poet

Sodomy in history, May 7th

1726 — A London newspaper publishes a list of Gay cruising spots.

1909 — The Kentucky Court of Appeals rules that the "crime against nature" outlaws anal sex only. The Court says: "...the word `sodomy’ is derived from the city of Sodom, where the crime against nature had its origin, and was universally prevalent until that city was destroyed by the wrath of God." Speaking of the defendants, the Court says: "The acts charged against the appellees are so disgusting that we refrain from copying the indictment in the opinion."

1975 — The Minnesota House votes in favor of a new sexual assault law that includes a repeal of the consensual sodomy law, but the Senate doesn’t go along.

1975 — The North Carolina Supreme Court again upholds the constitutionality of the state’s sodomy law.

Died this day

Artist associated with the Mir iskusstva. He was the son of a curator at the Hermitage, and he attended the St Petersburg Academy of Art from 1888 to 1897, studying under the Realist painter Il’ya Repin from 1894. In 1897 and again in 1898–9 he went to Paris and attended the studios of Filippo Colarossi and of Whistler. Neither the Realism of his Russian teachers nor the evanescent quality of Whistler’s art was reflected for long in Somov’s work. He turned instead for inspiration to the Old Masters in the Hermitage and to works of contemporary English and German artists, which he knew from visits abroad and from the art journals.

Serial Killer. Born in Miami, Florida, he visited Mexico City in 1983, where he recruited two younger men to be his servants, lovers and disciples. Over the next few years he became the leader of a full-fledged religion with drug dealers, musicians and even police officers under his command. The religion, based in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, on the U.S.-Mexico border, sold drugs, held high-priced religious ceremonies, and by 1987 at the latest, murdered people for use in human sacrifices. These victims fell along with the religion's rivals in dealing drugs.

Marlene Dietrich (1901 – 1992) German / US

German-American actress and singer, who remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Dietrich the ninth greatest female star of all time.

Dietrich's personal life was kept out of public view. Dietrich, who was bisexual, enjoyed the thriving gay scene of the time and drag balls of 1920s Berlin.

Fred Sadoff (1926 - 1994) US
Actor

Pim Fortuyn (1948 - 2002 ) Dutch
Politician / Murder Victim

Amancio Corrales(1982 - 2005) US
Drag Queen / Murder Victim

Noleen Jansen( ???? - 2005) Namibian
Murder Victim

Lorne Saxberg(1958 - 2006) Canadian Presenter / Journalist

Jack Frew(1993 - 2010) UK
Murder Victim

Sodomy in history, May 6th

1691 — New York becomes a royal colony and the 1665 buggery law is replaced by the English buggery statute.

1897 — The California Supreme Court rules that fellatio is not a "crime against nature."

1899 — The Vermont Supreme Court rules that sodomy is indictable under the state’s common-law reception statute. It also says that, since there is no specific penalty set, the penalty is left to the discretion of the trial judge.

1942 — The New York Post reports that Senator David Walsh (D-MA), Chair of the Senate Naval Intelligence Committee, is the Senator mentioned as a frequenter of the New York City male brothel raided by police earlier in the year.

Sunday, 5 May 2013

Events this day in Queer History May 5th

1994 – First issue of Metro Weekly published in Washington D.C., USA2009 – New Hampshire pass same-sex marriage bill by Senate and House

Born this day

Hans Heinrich von Twardowski (1898 - 1958), German / US. Actor

Twardowski appeared in numerous films from the 1920's to 1944, first in Germany, later in Hollywood. Thereafter, he continued to write and direct for the stage. He was homosexual, and left Germany in 1933 to escape the Nazi regime.

James Beard(1903 - 1985 ) US

Chef and food writer. The central figure in the story of the establishment of a gourmet American food identity, Beard was an eccentric personality who brought French cooking to the American middle and upper classes in the 1950s. Beard noted in his memoirs that he knew by the time that he was seven, that he was gay,

Del Martin (1921 – 2008)US

Pioneer lesbian activist, who together with her life partner Phyllis Lyons made several major contributions over half a century to progress to LGBT equality in the United Sates. They were founder members of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first social and political organization for lesbians in the United States.When they later joined the National Organization for Women (NOW) as the first lesbian couple to do so.They worked to form the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH), They became politically active in San Francisco's first gay political organization, the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club. Both served in the White House Conference on Aging in 1995, and in 2005 were among the first group of people inducted into the LGBT Journalists' Hall of Fame.

They had first met in 1952, and moved in together in San Francisco on Valentine's Day the following year. 55 years late they were the first same - sex couple to be married, in June 2008, after the California Supreme Court briefly legalized same-sex marriage in California. (later overturned by Proposition 8 that same year).

Kyan Douglas (1970 – ) US
Presenter

Died this day

George Rose(1920 – 1988) UK
Actor / Murder Victim

Sodomy in history, May 5th

1722 — Pennsylvania requires registration and duty for certain imported servants, including those convicted of sodomy.

1903 — The Kentucky Supreme Court decides that "Every person of ordinary intelligence understands what is meant by a charge of sodomy."

1947 — The Colorado Supreme Court upholds a sodomy conviction over the contention that a housekeeper testified as to the defendant’s relationship with another man, but not the one in question.

1983 — Wisconsin repeals its sodomy law.

1987 — A Michigan appellate court, while upholding the constitutionality of the state’s gross indecency law as applied to consensual acts in private, nevertheless overturns the conviction of a man for acts in a restroom due to overhead surveillance.

Pioneer lesbian activist, who together with her life partner Phyllis Lyons made several major contributions over half a century to progress to LGBT equality in the United Sates. They were founder members of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first social and political organization for lesbians in the United States.. For their work editing The Ladder, the group's pioneering newsletter, in 2005, they were among the first group of people inducted the LGBT Journalists' Hall of Fame. They remained active in the DOB, until they later joined the National Organization for women, the first lesbian couple to do so.

Their activism extended to religious and political groups. They worked to form the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH) in northern California to persuade ministers to accept homosexuals into churches, and used their influence to decriminalize homosexuality in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They became politically active in San Francisco's first gay political organization, the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club, which influenced Dianne Feinstein to sponsor a citywide bill to outlaw employment discrimination for gays and lesbians. Both served in the White House Conference on Aging in 1995.

They had first met in 1952, and moved in together in San Francisco on Valentine's Day the following year. 55 years late they were the first same - sex couple to be married, in June 2008, after the California Supreme Court briefly legalized same-sex marriage in California. (later overturned by Proposition 8 that same year).

Saturday, 4 May 2013

Born this day

Lincoln Kirstein(1907 - 1996 ) US

Writer, impresario, art connoisseur, and cultural figure in New York City. According to the New York Times, he was "an expert in many fields." He had a large circle of friends who stimulated creativity in many of the arts, and numerous sexual relationships with men, from casual encounters to longer relationships. He was the primary patron of the homoerotic artist Paul Cadmus, and after he married Cadmus' sister, Fidelma, some of his boyfriends lived with them.

Benno Premsela(1920 – 1997) Dutch
Interior designer, who was a pioneer activist in the cause of gay emancipation. He was one of the first people in the Netherlands to come out publicly, and as early as 1947 was speaking out for equality. In 1964 he was the first homosexual to appear on Dutch television without having his features distorted. From 1962 to 1971 he chaired the gay rights group COC, and in 1995 he was given the prestigious Silver Carnation award, for his contribution to both arts administration and gay emancipation.

Keith Haring (1958 - 1990 ) US
Artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.

Mark Leduc(1962 – 2009) Canadian
Boxer, who won a silver medal at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics. After retiring, Leduc came out as gay in 1994 in the TV documentary "For the Love of the Game", one of the few boxers ever to do so. He also spoke about being a gay athlete in CBC Radio's documentary "The Last Closet" and spent time talking to gay youth. He attended Toronto’s Pride Parade in 1999 as grand marshal (with Savoy Howe). Leduc worked for and volunteered with the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation, later becoming a set-builder and construction worker in the film industry.
Bent Hoie(1971 –)Norwegian
Politician representing the Conservative Party in the Storting (parliament),first elected in 2001. Alison Duncan(1975 – ) US
Politician, who ran for Lieutenant Governor of New York on the Green Party line in 2006. Lance Bass(1979 – )US

Pop singer, dancer, actor, film and television producer, and author. After he revealed that he is gay in a cover story for People magazine, he was awarded the Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award in October 2006.

Died this day

Sir Osbert Sitwell(1892 – 1969) UK.
English writer,the brother of Dame Edith Sitwell and Sir Sacheverell Sitwell, who first began to write poetry while serving in the trenches during the First World War.

Jane Bowles (1917 – 1973) US
Author / Playwright, who married the writer Paul Bowles. It was an unconventional marriage: their intimate relationships were with people of their own sex, but they maintained close ties to each other

Ray McDonald(1944 – 1993) US AmericanProfessional American football player, a running back in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins for two seasons, from 1967-68. In 1968, he was arrested by Washington, D.C. police for having sex with a man in public. Injuries also played a part in cutting short his career and by 1969 he was out of pro football. He died of complications due to AIDS in 1993.Lt. Col. Alois Estermann ( 1944/5 -1998), VaticanCityLance Coporal Cedric Tornay(1964/5 - 1998), Vatican CityA Swiss Guard in the Vatican, Estermann and his Venezuelan wife, Gladys Meza Romero, were murdered by Tornay, Estermann's subordinate in the Guards. Estermann and Tornay are believed to have been in a gay relationship.Ed Gallagher(?– 2005) US American
American college football player, who attempted to commit suicide, as he attempted to grapple with his sexuality, just 12 days after his first sexual encounter with a man. He survived but was left a paraplegic, and went on to become an author and speak out publicly about disabilities and homosexuality.

Ignace van Swieten(1943 – 2005) Dutch

Football referee, who was named Dutch Referee of the Year in 1984. He was the first professional football referee to come out as gay.

Sodomy in history, May 4th

May 4

1497 — A revolt against religious leader Savanarola in Venice, who has been a leader against sodomy, leads one man to say, "Thank God, now we can sodomize again."

1805 — Louisiana outlaws sodomy with a compulsory sentence of life imprisonment at hard labor.

1885 — Ohio outlaws sodomy with a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. There is evidence that the bill was introduced solely as a political ploy to embarrass the Governor, hinted by an opposition newspaper of being Gay.

1886 — An Ohio appellate court rules that, under the state’s 1885 sodomy law, indictments must be specific and, in dictum, that sodomy can be accomplished only if at least one party is a male person. This frees Lesbians from prosecution.

1943 — Puerto Rico changes its sodomy penalty from a minimum of 5 years to a penalty of 1-10 years.

1949 — Hawaii amends its disorderly conduct law to include "soliciting men for the purpose of committing a crime against nature or other lewdness.

1959 — A California appellate court overturns the oral copulation conviction of a man, rejecting every single one of 20 pieces of "corroborating" evidence.

1962 — The Delaware Supreme Court upholds the right of trial courts to ignore the statutory ban on probation for sodomy.

1972 — Rhode Island enacts a law permitting compensation for anyone killed or injured by the "crime against nature."

Friday, 3 May 2013

Born this day

Franz Nopcsa von Felso-Szilvas (1877 –
1933) Hungarian
Hungarian-born aristocrat, adventurer, scholar, and paleontologist. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of paleobiology and Albanian studies.

Virgil Fox (1912 – 1980)US
American organist, known especially for his flamboyant "Heavy Organ" concerts of the music of Bach. These events appealed to audiences in the 1970s who were more familiar with rock 'n' roll music and were staged complete with light shows.

May Sarton (1912 – 1995)US
American poet, novelist, and memoirist. William Inge(1913 – 1973)US
Playwright and novelist, who became known as the "Playwright of the Midwest" for his portraits of small-town life and settings rooted in the American heartland. In the early 1950s, he earned a Pulitzer Prize for "Picnic".

Died this day

Italian philosopher and art critic. He is said to have been the lover of Frederick the Great, who made him a Prussian count in 1740 and court chamberlain in 1747.

Patrick Pearse(1879 – 1916 ) Irish. Poet, Author, Activist

Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist and political activist who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916.

Peter Watson (1908 – 1956) UK
A wealthy English art collector and benefactor, who funded the literary magazine, Horizon. He was the principal benefactor of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London and also provided financial assistance to English and Irish painters Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and John Craxton.

Christine Jorgensen(1926–1989) US
The first person widely known to have sex reassignment surgery.

Returning to New York after military service and increasingly concerned over her "lack of male physical development", Jorgensen heard about the possibility of sex reassignment surgery, and began taking the female hormone ethinyl estradiol on her own. She researched the subject with the help of Dr. Joseph Angelo, a husband of one of Jorgensen's classmates at the Manhattan Medical and Dental Assistant School. Jorgensen intended to go to Sweden, where the only doctors in the world performing this type of surgery at the time were to be found. At a stopover in Copenhagen to visit relatives, however, Jorgensen met Dr. Christian Hamburger, a Danish endocrinologist and specialist in rehabilitative hormonal therapy. Jorgensen ended up staying in Denmark, and under Dr. Hamburger's direction, was allowed to begin hormone replacement therapy, eventually undergoing a series of surgeries.
According to an obituary, "With special permission from the Danish Minister of Justice, Jorgensen had his [sic] testicles removed first and his still-undeveloped penis a year later. Several years later Jorgensen obtained a vaginoplasty, when the procedure became available in the U.S., under the direction of Dr. Angelo and a medical advisor Harry Benjamin.
Jorgensen chose the name Christine in honor of Dr. Hamburger. She became a spokesperson for transsexual and transgender people.

Robert de Niro Sr(1922 – 1993) US
Abstract expressionist painter and the father of actor Robert De Niro.

Jon Vincent ( ? – 2000) US
Porn

Sodomy in history, May 3rd

May 3

1938 — A California appellate court overturns a sodomy conviction that was obtained merely upon proof that the defendant was Gay.

1955 — A California appellate court upholds the oral copulation conviction of a man for acts with a physically disabled man, saying "the incident was characteristic of such offenses."

1978 — The Ohio Supreme Court decides that the state’s age of consent is not 16 as the legislature intended, but actually 15 years and 1 day, because of the awkward language used in writing the statute.

Thursday, 2 May 2013

Born this day

Lorenz Hart(1895 - 1943), US. Lyricist

Lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart. He "had a remarkable talent for polysyllabic and internal rhymes", and his lyrics have often been praised for their wit and technical sophistication.
For years Hart was a bachelor and lived with his widowed mother. He suffered from alcoholism. He would sometimes disappear for weeks at a time on alcoholic binges. Hart died in New York City of pneumonia from exposure after a bout of heavy drinking

Mabel Hampton(1902 - 1989),US.
American lesbian activist, a dancer during the Harlem Renaissance, and a philanthropist for both black and lesbian/gay organizations.

William Hutt (1920 – 2007) Canadian
Stage, television and film actor, whose career spanned more than fifty years.Howard Cruse(1944 – ) US
Alternative cartoonist known for the exploration of gay themes in his comics.
Cruse is married to Eddie Sedarbaum.

Lesley Gore (1946 – ) US
Singer, best known for her 1963 pop hit "It's My Party", which she recorded at the age of 16. Following the hit, she became one of the most recognized teen pop singers of the 1960s. Her later career has included songwriting and television presenting. Beginning in 2004, Gore hosted the PBS television series "In the Life", which focused on LGBT issues. In a 2005 interview, she came out publicly as a lesbian. As of the time of the interview, she had been living with her partner for more than 23 years

Ed Murray (1955 – ) US
Politician who serves in the Washington State Senate. Currently one of six openly gay members of the Washington State Legislature,he has been active in advancing LGBT rights. He led the push for an anti-discrimination law protecting gays and lesbians in 2006, he was also the main sponsor of legislation creating domestic partnerships, approved in 2007, and prominent in the push that achieved marriage equality legislation in 2012

Stephen Daldry(1961 – ) UK
Theatre and film director and producer. In addition to two Tony awards for his stage work, he is notable for having had all of the feature films that he directed, nominated for Best Director or Best Picture at the Academy Awards

Michael Grandage(1962 – ) UK
Award-winning British theatre director and producer. He is currently Artistic Director of the Michael Grandage Company. From 2002 to 2012 he was Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse in London

David McAlmont
(1967 –) UK
Singer and songwriter

Christopher Lee Nutter (1970 – ) US
Writer, the author of "The Way Out: The Gay Man’s Guide to Freedom, No Matter if You’re in Denial, Closeted, Half In, Half Out, Just Out, or Been Around the Block" , and co-author of "Ignite the Genius Within").

Died this day

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) Italian
Renaissance polymath, renowned primarily as a painter whose Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time. However, he was also notable as a sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.

His sexuality has been the subject of satire, analysis, and speculation. Much has been written about his presumed homosexuality and its role in his art, particularly in the androgyny and eroticism manifested in John the Baptist and Bacchus and more explicitly in a number of erotic drawings. Leonardo's most intimate relationships were perhaps with his pupils Salai and Melzi.It has been claimed since the 16th century that these relationships were of a sexual or erotic nature.

William Thomas Beckford(1760– 1844 ) UK
A profligate and consummately knowledgeable art collector and patron of works of decorative art, a critic, travel writer and sometime politician, reputed to be the richest commoner in England. In spite of his great wealth and culture, he was ostracised by English society after knowledge emerged of a sexual fling in his youth with a younger cousin. His vast wealth allowed him to ignore the general opprobrium, and surrounded himself at his enormous estate, Fonthill, with a harem of boy-servants.
He was also the author of the first English Gothic novel, "Vathek".

Joseph McCarthy ( 1908 - 1957 ) The red baiting homophobe was actually a closet gay. The number of American lives destroyed in the '50s by his "outing Communists" numbered in the tens of thousands in America.

Justin Fashanu (1959/61 - 1998) UK
Footballer who was known by his early clubs to be gay, and came out to the press later in his career, to become the first and only English professional footballer to be openly homosexual. Until former France international Olivier Rouyer came out in 2008, Fashanu was still the only professional footballer in the world to disclose that he was gay.
Fashanu hanged himself in May 1998,at a time when he was wanted in the United States on charges of sexually assaulting a teenager in Maryland. In his suicide note, he insisted that the sex had been consensual.
Since his death, he has been frequently held up as a role model, to encourage other sporting figures to come out publicly, as in this BBC documentary.

Wednesday, 1 May 2013

Events this day in Queer History

2009 – Same-sex marriage legalised in Sweden.

Born this day

Romaine Brooks(1874 - 1970) US

An American painter who worked mostly in Paris and Capri, she specialized in portraiture and used a subdued palette dominated by the color gray. She is best known for her images of women in androgynous or masculine dress, including her self-portrait of 1923, which is her most widely reproduced work.

She often painted people close to her, such as the Italian writer and politician Gabriele D'Annunzio, the Russian dancer Ida Rubinstein, and her partner of more than 50 years, the writer Natalie Barney.

Died this day

Dorothy Bussy(1865 - 1960 ) UK
Author / Translator

Harold Nicholson( 1886 – 1968)
Diplomat, author, diarist and politician, the husband of writer Vita Sackville-West. Their unusual relationship being described in their son's book, Portrait of a Marriage. Nicolson and his wife practiced what today would be called an open marriage. They each had a number of same-sex affairs, and once Harold had to follow Vita to France, where she had "eloped" with Violet Trefusis, to try to win her back. However, they remained happy together.

Sylvia Townsend Warner(1893 – 1978) UK.

English novelist and poet, who is an important lesbian voice of the earlier twentieth century. and was the life partner of the poet Valentine Ackland,

Together, Ackland and Warner embarked on an unusual poetry venture - a book of poems, at the heart of which is a group of celebratory, erotic love poetry, published under both names simultaneously, with no indication which poem was the work of which poet.

Bryan Derbyshire(1943 - 2001) UK
Journalist / Editor / Entrepreneur

John Nathan-Turner (1947 - 2002 ) UK
Producer

Paul Moore(1919 – 2003) US, Marine, Bishop
Bishop of the Episcopal Church and served as the 13th Bishop of New York. During his lifetime, he was perhaps the best known Episcopal clergyman in the United States, and among the best known Christian clergy in any denomination.

Although twice married and the father of nine children, he was bisexual. This was firmly revealed after his death. Honor Moore, the oldest of his revealed that her father was bisexual with a history of gay affairs in a story she wrote about him in The New Yorker and in the book The Bishop's Daughter: A Memoir.

Edward von Kloberg III(1942 – 2005) US

Lobbyist

Bernard Archard (1916– 2008) UK
Actor

Sodomy in history, May

1909 — Pennsylvania expands its sodomy provision within the divorce law to include acts of sodomy committed prior to marriage.

1933 — Guam gets a penal code by order of its naval governor and sodomy and oral copulation are outlawed, copying the California code.

Tuesday, 23 April 2013

Born this day

Ethel Smyth(1858 - 1944) UK
Composer / Suffragette

Elisabeth de Gramont(1875 - 1954) French

Antoinette Corisande Élisabeth, Duchess of Clermont-Tonnerre (née de Gramont) was a French writer of the early 20th century, best known for her long-term lesbian relationship with Natalie Clifford Barney. She was a close friend, and sometimes critic of writer Marcel Proust, whom she had met on June 9, 1903. In her youth, Élisabeth de Gramont was a strikingly pretty woman. Opinionated, outspoken, she became openly bisexual by the turn of the century, despite being married.

Augusto d’Halmar(1882 – 1950) Chilean
Author

James Kirkup (1918 – 2009 ) UK
A prolific English poet, translator and travel writer who became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.
In 1977, he was at the centre of a blasphemy trial when the newspaper Gay News published his poem The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name, in which a Roman centurion describes his lust and attraction for Jesus after his death.

Halston (1932 – 1990) US
Fashion Designer

Fred Goldhaber (1947 – 2010) US
TeacherDirk Bach(1961 – )German
Actor

Jon Birgisson (1975 – ) Icelandic
Musician / Singer

Bradley Traynor(1975 – ) US
Drag Queen [aka Wanda Wisdom] / Presenter

Died this day

Rupert Brooke(1887– 1915) UK
Poet

Jean-Daniel Cadinot (1944 – 2008) French
Porn Director

Sodomy in history,

April 23

1829 — Pennsylvania passes a new sodomy law with a penalty of 1-5 years for a first offense and up to 10 years for a second offense.

1841 — Hawaii passes a vagrancy law that prohibits men and boys from running "in crowds after new things" in an "indecent manner."

1952 — The New York State Court of Appeals overturns a sodomy conviction because of uncorroborated testimony of the partner being admitted into evidence.

1957 — The Alabama Court of Appeals rules that the testimony of accomplices in sodomy cases must be corroborated.

1969 — Kansas passes a new criminal code and becomes the first state in the nation to makes its sodomy law applicable only to people of the same sex. It also reduces the penalty from a felony to a misdemeanor. The commission writing the code tells the legislature that the language is standard in new codes, even though no other state has such a provision.

1977 — Vermont passes a new sexual assault law that includes a repeal of its law banning oral sex.